1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to enhancing security with transactions and, more particularly, to authenticating an NFC-enabled check-in.
2. Related Art
Check-ins in a social media context have become popular in recent years. These services allow a user who is visiting a particular venue (e.g., a store or a restaurant) to announce on social media that he has “checked in” at that venue. Users who frequently check into a specific venue may earn points or titles such as “mayors” of such venue. These users may also receive rewards from the venues that they frequently check into so that they are encouraged to perform more check-ins in the future, thereby raising the venue's popularity. However, traditional check-in mechanisms may lack sufficient fraud prevention, thereby allowing scheming users to “check in” to a venue without physically being there. These types of fraud undermine the credibility of check-in systems and as such may hurt its future growth.
Therefore, while existing check-in mechanisms have been generally adequate for their intended purposes, they have not been entirely satisfactory in every aspect. It would be advantageous to add additional levels of security to check-in mechanisms so that fraudulent check-ins may be quickly discovered and addressed.